We like to celebrate winners of writing competitions here on the Legal Writing Prof Blog. So we are happy to post news that the Association of American Law Schools announced the winner of the 2009 competition for scholarly papers, and it was a tie! The winners are Assistant Professor Laura A. Cisneros (Texas Southern University, Thurgood Marshall School of Law) for her paper entitled “Standing Doctrine, Judicial Technique, and the Gradual Shift From Rights-Based Constitutionalism to Executive Constitutionalism,” and Visiting Assistant Professor Deborah Widiss (Brooklyn Law School) for her paper entitled “Shadow Precedents and the Separation of Powers: Statutory Interpretation of Congressional Overrides.” Both winning authors will present their papers in San Diego at the AALS Annual Meeting on Thursday, January 8, 2009 from 4:00 until 5:45 p.m.